Snowball viburnum

My old-fashioned snowball bush is gorgeous right now. The huge flower clusters, which start out as green, have now turned almost pure white, and the entire bush is heavy and drooping with them. There must be hundreds and hundreds of blooms, and each individual cluster gets larger and whiter as they mature. I have had this shrub for many years and it is huge, more than 15 feet tall and still growing. I don’t ever do anything to it other than pruning it a bit right after it finishes blooming. I also keep the trunks clear of branches from the ground up to a little more than 5 feet, and pruning it this way keeps it like a standard or small tree with a large canopy instead of a shrub. I can easily stand underneath it.

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Snowball Viburnum blooms

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In late evening and even at night, the white flowers are phosphorescent and practically glow in the dark. The photo at left was taken at twilight (click to enlarge). Snowballs would be great for a moon garden. This shrub blooms for many weeks in the spring and when the petals start falling, they look like snow on the grass underneath it. I always look forward to seeing this large shrub bloom every year. The one drawback to this shrub that I have found is that when it is at peak bloom and the flower clusters are at their largest, heavy rains can be damaging to the flowers and can cause the branches to become so heavy that they droop almost to the ground.

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Click on any photo to view a larger version.

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This shrub is at the edge of my yard and is visible from the road — I’ve had many people stop and ask about it or want to take photos of it when it’s in full bloom.

I have successfully propagated this deciduous shrub for others by rooting semi-hardwood and hardwood cuttings from it in the early summer. I simply take several cuttings of about 12 inches long, remove most of the leaves, and place them about 5 inches deep in a rich, sandy potting mix I have in a deep old tub at the edge of the woods. The tub gets dappled sunlight, and I do keep it watered through the summer months. By the following spring and summer, usually more than half of the cuttings are well-rooted and ready to transplant. I’ve had good luck propagating many flowers, shrubs, and even trees this way.